Hamburg needs food, Mozier needs sandbaggers

Cries for help continued to emanate Thursday from the towns of Hamburg and Mozier in Calhoun County.

Hamburg, which has 125 people, is seeking donations of ham and cheese to supplement the two meals the American Red Cross is providing daily to volunteers helping with sandbagging efforts in the flooded village along the Mississippi River.

“We have hundreds of volunteers here that come up to the Village Hall to cool off and take a break, and we are trying to have sandwiches, coffee, tea, sodas and Gatorade on hand for them,” Hamburg resident Connie Proctor said Thursday.

Members of the Illinois National Guard were at the scene on Wednesday. Along with local residents, help also has come from volunteers, such as a complement of military personnel from Scott Air Force Base, prison inmates from East St. Louis and people from all over the country. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency set up a command post in a Homeland Security trailer, and the Illinois Department of Transportation, besides hauling truckloads of sand, also completed construction of an emergency flood road to the northern section of the village.

Volunteers or those wishing to take donations of food items and large garbage bags may take Illinois Route 100 to Michael, turn west into Michael and follow the Michael Hollow Road to Hamburg. Volunteers will be stopped at a sign-in post on the edge of the village and directed where to park, or if bringing donations, the items will be taken by village officials at the sign-in post.

In Hamburg, at least seven of the 50 homes have been lost to the flood.

In Mozier, volunteer sandbaggers still were needed desperately Thursday. There are 64 people living in the community, and of 54 homes, about 16 are in jeopardy.

“We have about 25 to 30 people and could use more,” Mozier resident Doug Angel said Thursday. “We have plenty of sand and sandbags; we just need more workers.”

Mozier area residents and locals are manning the sandbag post at the former Mozier Cafe at the junction of Illinois Route 96, about one-half mile from the village of Mozier, and taking the sandbags into the flooded village by johnboat.

Edwardsville Fire Chief J. Brian Wilson Sr. said Thursday that he is working the current flood incident as part of the new Illinois Type 3 Incident Management Team.

“We are working alongside IEMA to help manage all of the staffing and hard assets for this incident, and any others like it that may occur in the future,” Wilson wrote in an e-mail. “This is the first deployment for this team since the inception of it, and it’s working remarkably well.”

Both communities are watching Missouri-side flood level predictions carefully, monitoring the levels at the Clarksville and Winfield lock-and-dams, both of which are upstream.